House Concurrent Resolution 1004, which passed out of committee late today on a 27-0 vote, backs a brokered agreement the Office of the Attorney General negotiated with plaintiffs’ lawyers. The plan would deliver long-delayed justice for crime victims and save the state untold millions of dollars by ensuring due process for criminal defendants deemed incompetent to stand trial.
At issue is a class action suit that contends the Oklahoma Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services (ODHMHSAS) has violated due process rights of some pretrial criminal defendants by failing to provide timely court-ordered competency restoration services. Some inmates have waited in county jails for more than a year – and longer – thereby escaping accountability and stalling justice for victims of crime.
“This proposed settlement is a big win for Oklahoma,” Drummond said. “It saves the state tens of millions of dollars defending a clearly indefensible situation and remedies serious problems that have long plagued our criminal justice system. I am grateful to House Speaker Hilbert and Senate President Pro Tempore Paxton for authoring HCR 1004, and I am optimistic the resolution will make its way to Gov. Stitt for his signature.”
The lawsuit was filed in March 2023. Negotiations began the following month.
The consent decree details a strategic plan for justice to be administered in a timely fashion by improving ODMHSAS restoration services. Under the plan, the agency will work with experts as well as community leadership to improve competency restoration services through:
- increasing training of forensic healthcare professionals,
- reducing the number of individuals inaccurately declared incompetent,
- lowering the wait times to constitutionally appropriate levels of competency restoration treatment,
- creating an appropriate and effective in-jail restoration treatment program, and
- expanding the State’s resources, including additional in-patient competency restoration beds.
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